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Wells Fargo Closed Their Accounts, but the Fees Continued to Mount
- projektfu 7y agoThis is disturbing. Previous problems weren’t apparently affecting business accounts but this one is. Many of us are required to have a primary operating account with Wells as part of a loan agreement.
- SeeDave 7y agoYou most likely received a discounted interest rate on your loan in-line with anti-typing exceptions outlined in 12 CFR 225.7 For reference: https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-issuances/bulletins/1995/bulletin-1995-20.html https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-issuances/bulletins/1995/bull...
- projektfu 7y agoIt says they have an exception when tying traditional bank products together, like a loan and a deposit account.
- ddingus 7y agoThen the accounts were not closed, simple as that. IMHO, this is criminal.
- repomies691 7y ago> IMHO, this is criminal. Is criminality opinion nowadays? To my understanding if a bank acts like this, there is very little to do. Maybe a class action lawsuit would work in US?
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoIIUC, one intended role of a judge is to reach an opinion about the criminality of some act. So I'd say yes. Edit: I assume we're talking about opinion as judgment of objective matters, not opinion as statement of personal preference.
- automated_toast 7y agoSo let me tell you how the class action would go down. A law firm would find a few impacted folks. They would then file for a class action covering, let's say, 100K people. WF would then agree to pay like $50M. The lawyers would take at least half of that or $25M. The 'few impacted folks' the lawyers originally found would get between 50K and 100K each. The remainder would be disbursed to nonprofits because it would be too onerous to find all defendants. WF would get this monkey off its back. And the actual impacted folks would get zip, zilch, nada.
- howard941 7y agoYou forgot to mention that the wrongful behavior would cease. That's the point of a class action: It provides an effective state attorney without tapping the public treasury.
- brewdad 7y agoNot if they made more money ripping people off than it cost them in the courts. Even if they didn't make a full $50 million in this scam, time value of money means they get to capture earnings on the scammed money for a decade before they have to finally pay a penalty. THEN they get to offset $50 million of current income to reduce their tax bill. I'm surprised more banks don't do this.
- ddingus 7y agoIt is my opinion this action could be criminal under existing law. Basic misrepresentation. Closed has a clear and expected meaning. FWIW, last time I closed a bank account I asked for a signature indicating I had no further financial obligation. This crap has happened before.
- edoo 7y agoWF got caught opening mass numbers of accounts for customers who didn't ask for them resulting in fees as well. They didn't get in trouble for that either. It was systematic corruption. You don't get that many employees doing it unless it is approved. https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/investing/wells-fargo-created-phony-accounts-bank-fees/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/investing/wells-fargo-creat...
- raincom 7y agoIn 2002, I opened an credit card account with Wells Fargo. I went to the local wells fargo to pay the monthly due on the due-by date. In the next billing cycle, I was charged $25 for late payment. That's when I decided to close accounts with them.
- reaperducer 7y agoI had a Wells Fargo account for a number of years. Then one day I deposited about $250 cash into a Wells Fargo ATM. But it didn't show up in my account. When I complained, Fargo treated me like I was a criminal. It wouldn't credit me for the money, even though I had the ATM receipt. The branch manager told me he wouldn't even review the security video unless I filed a police report about it. I drained the account to zero and ignored it. Six months later, I get a letter from Fargo saying that a guy who worked for a company they outsourced ATM maintenance to was skimming cash from the machines. Fargo finally credited me for the missing money, and I closed the account the next week.
- serf 7y agoVery similar story here. Every bank since WF that i've interacted with has been splendid; I think it's just that WF set such a low floor for expectations that ANY decent bank seems far ahead.
- javert 7y agoBranch manager may have been in on the graft with the ATM maintenance guy.
- heimatau 7y agoWow. If they would've did their job they've prevent six months of theft. That's sad.
- DiabloD3 7y agoYou should have also reported them to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a little known regulatory office that no one ever seems to know about, but govern such cases like yours.
- pjlnotsecure 7y agoI have seen many articles go to 1,500 or more comments at NY Times. Is it usual for The NY Times to close their comments section after only 18 or so hours and just 230~ comments?
- reaperducer 7y agoI don't read newspaper article comments, but it's possible that an anti-spam system kicked in. It's not like newspapers have people watching the comments on every article.
- shakna 7y agoThis may just be a rate-limiting tactic inside an antispam system, that allows comments later or in different areas.
- reaperducer 7y agoThe bank informed Mr. Einaudi that it was closing all 13 of the checking accounts it provided his roofing company, CRV Construction, for a reason it called “confidential.” Citibank did that to two of my accounts. Good thing they weren't with Wells Fargo, or I probably would have gotten the same treatment. But I still get messages from Citibank about the phantom accounts and how I'm not maximizing their potential. Amazingly, I can still log in to the accounts online and see that they are closed.
- vageli 7y ago> The bank informed Mr. Einaudi that it was closing all 13 of the checking accounts it provided his roofing company, CRV Construction, for a reason it called “confidential.” > Citibank did that to two of my accounts. Good thing they weren't with Wells Fargo, or I probably would have gotten the same treatment. But I still get messages from Citibank about the phantom accounts and how I'm not maximizing their potential. Amazingly, I can still log in to the accounts online and see that they are closed. They probably have to retain login to allow export of your statements.
- reaperducer 7y agoA spokesman for the bank said... the bank reviews accounts to protect customers and was “committed to doing so in ways that minimize the risk and impact to our customers.” “As a company, we are focused on continually improving this process,” said the spokesman, Jim Seitz. Sounds like Wells Fargo has the same doublespeak PR department as Facebook. A bank isn't supposed to "continually improve the process." The whole point of a bank is that it's supposed to do things right the first time.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoPerhaps the "process" they are improving is the number of "perfectly legal"/"plausibly deniable" ways they can take money from people?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- viburnum 7y agoWells Fargo has been in the news for one fiasco or another for 20 years. How are they still in business? Their reputation is terrible. I guess people don’t talk about their banks that much.
- lallysingh 7y agoMomentum.
- kumarm 7y agoBeen wellfargo customer for 20+ years. Good Service, Local branches to walk into. I believe issues like these are exception cases.
- raincom 7y agoWellsfargo is good if you are not running into edge cases. In other words, if you are paying cards, mortgage payments 15 days in advance, if you are keeping nice bank balance in your checking accounts, no issues. The moment you try to do things per the book, they'll screw you.
- chillwaves 7y agoWhy does Wells Fargo keep getting caught engaging in illegal and/or fraudulent activity? What does Wells Fargo offer that a local credit union doesn't?
- colejohnson66 7y agoI’m curious why this is being downvoted? Are people here really downvoting someone because they haven’t had a bad experience at a certain place you don’t like?
- detaro 7y agoNo, because they extrapolate from their experience that all the problems have to be "exceptional cases", when there's good arguments that a lot of problems at WF are not that, but systemic problems and outright fraud causing damage to millions of people.
- peter303 7y agoNote Wells Fargo bought two banks I had accounts in. That is an unplanned way I had accounts in their banks.
- sndean 7y agoSame here. My first account was at a Wachovia, but they fell apart during the recession and were acquired by WF. Looking for a convenient time to switch.
- tomohawk 7y agoJust avoid any large bank. Stick to credit unions and and local banks that you know something about. I was given this advice a long time ago and it has saved endless hassle.
- lscotte 7y agoLocal credit unions are definitely the way to go.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoWhat's everyone's preferred bank? I want something with ATMs everywhere, good international travel support, and a not-horrible website I can move stuff around in/monitor with. I'm in SF. Wells Fargo has checked those boxes for me, and never done me wrong, but they keep screwing over other people. Maybe I should take my money elsewhere.
- dondawest 7y agoSchwab is your move, IMO. I know a ton of people who moved from WF to Schwab and never looked back. Zero international ATM fees and great customer service. Solid app too.
- nimish 7y agoCharles Schwab (the person) is a major trump supporter. Charles Schwab bank has been quite good and unlike the cma offered by fidelity and other brokers it's an actual bank account.
- juped 7y agoIf you don't need physical bank branches, use Charles Schwab Bank. Their checking account is nice and they will reimburse you for _all_ ATM fees worldwide; it's an onramp to their brokerage products, so it can only be opened alongside a brokerage account, but neither account will have fees or minimums.
- craftyguy 7y agoLocal credit union. Many of them share ATMs as a part of some ATM co-op network.
- twblalock 7y agoI'm with Wells Fargo and I'm not planning to leave. I don't think any of the other banks are morally superior -- Wells Fargo is probably just a bit more inept at covering things up.
- sverhagen 7y ago
- mark_l_watson 7y agoI use Wells Fargo and get very good service at my local bank. That said, we also use two local credit unions and supporting smaller banks is, I think, a good thing to do.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- c3534l 7y agoThis happened to me. It was a nightmare. Glad to know I wasn't the only one.
- gnicholas 7y agoI had a brokerage account that I closed out by transferring all of my stock and cash to another brokerage. Apparently they failed to transfer it all and left 2¢ in the account. For nearly 10 years I’ve been receiving mailed statements from the old brokerage with my account details. I wonder how many other accounts are in this limbo, and how much postage (now over 50¢!) is being wasted on these mailed statements. I’m glad my only inconvenience is having to recycle the monthly mailings, and not mounting fees, like the people at Wells Fargo!
- vidanay 7y agoI have an ETrade account like this.
- crb002 7y agoBank of the West is 100x better.